As Though Everything is a Miracle
by Spark Writer
Summary: They find each other in every world, in every universe, in every plane, in every time. Sherlock/John.


_(A/N): Inspired in large part by Einstein's theory of relativity._

_..._

_..._

_There are two ways to live your life—_  
_one is as though nothing is a miracle,_  
_the other is as though everything is a miracle._  
_The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious:_  
_it is the source of all true art and all science._  
_He to whom this emotion is a stranger,_  
_who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,_  
_is as good as dead: his eyes are closed._

-Albert Einstein

...

...

It is a bitter day in January. In a dingy flat east of the Thames, a man is waking out of a nightmare. Head buzzing with spattered cartilage and blinding sand, he swings his legs over the edge of the mattress and sits upright, trembling. He cannot sleep now. His hands grip the blankets, let go, grip again. He stands and slips into a tatty dressing gown. He does not feel much like eating, dressing, working, functioning, or existing in general. His therapist told him to begin writing a blog, but to his PTSD-riddled mind, the task seems insurmountable. He goes to his desk, opens his laptop, and contemplates writing the first post. What should he say? Should he make an attempt to hide his dull, ordinary nature and seem, to the casual viewer, wittier, clever, more stimulating? He is utterly stymied; mocked by the blinking cursor, by the extraordinary blankness of the white screen.

In another part of London, there is a man studying rat's blood through a microscope in a hospital called St. Bartholomew's. His head is pounding with lack of sleep and caffeine, his skin burning with boredom, the acrid, filtered oxygen filling his airways with the sharp scent of rubbing alcohol and detergent, and he finds it unusually difficult to focus on the gory swirl of molecules before him. He is preoccupied.

The first man dresses himself and chokes down an apple and mug of abysmal instant coffee. He collects his cane and leaves the flat. No less than fifteen minutes later, he passes an old friend in the park, stops, turns around, and stares. Mike Stamford looks very happy to see him, so, although he isn't in the mood for conversation, the man sits on a bench with Stamford and they talk.

"I'm looking for a flatmate," he says, after a bit of perfunctory small talk.

Stamford chuckles.

"What?" he queries.

"You're the second person to say that today."

"Who was the first?"

...

Scoff as you will, but it is love at first sight for the man with the limp. He follows Stamford into the lab, sees a wraithlike man hunched over a microscope, and feels his stomach flutter and clench. That's all it takes for his universe to rearrange itself. That's it.

The second man doesn't believe in such flights of fancy, so he has no name for the abrupt swooping sensation he feels when he lays eyes on the compact, sandy-haired man opposite. It goes undefined, cast off as some absurd biological reaction.

He asks Stamford for his phone; says he prefers to text, and the first man obliges instead. Presses his mobile into the large, pale hand and they study each other whilst all time seems to slow to an arduous crawl. The two have no idea they will experience these events again and again, over and over, that they will meet, share a flat, solve crimes, fall in love, part, grieve, reunite, solve more crimes, and outwit the most nefarious felons, that the man with nightmares will one day interrupt his flatmate in the middle of a sneering diatribe and kiss him so hard he's struck dumb, that they will admit their love for each other, fuck—on the sofa, the bed, the floor, against the wall; gasping panting groaning aching coming—kiss some more, lay tangled together on their shared mattress, grow frail-limbed and feeble, that one will be witness to the other's passing, will press a kiss to the cold forehead and step back, flesh crawling with sorrow, hundreds, thousands, millions, _billions_ more times.

They do not know time is a circle and individual experiences repeat themselves precisely, endlessly, that the dead are never truly dead, that the demise of this earth creates the birth of a new one. They know nothing of this great, unending loop. They don't know that they have stood here two million times before and will stand here two million times after. No. Correction: infinitely more times after.

At this moment, palms clasped in what they believe is their first ever handshake, the two can only inhale, _inhale_, wait for the newly remade ground to stop shaking beneath their feet.


End file.
